"A sincere diplomat is like dry water or wooden iron"

Joseph Stalin’s comparison of a “sincere diplomat" to "dry water or wooden iron” is a striking example of political cynicism, capturing the contradiction he believed to lie at the heart of diplomacy. The image of “dry water” or “wooden iron” invokes the idea of things that, by their very definition, cannot exist. Water cannot be dry without ceasing to be water; iron cannot be made of wood without losing its essential characteristic as iron. In applying this logic to the role of a diplomat, Stalin suggests that sincerity and the art of diplomacy are fundamentally incompatible.

Diplomacy, traditionally, is the art of negotiation, compromise, and the balancing of national interests. It is a field in which messages are often cloaked in ambiguity, intentions veiled, and every gesture measured. To succeed on an international stage, diplomats must sometimes withhold, dissemble, or obscure the full extent of their intentions. Stalin’s observation draws on the hard lessons of history where duplicity, secret treaties, and shifting alliances were commonplace. Therefore, the expectation that a diplomat can be wholly sincere is tantamount, in Stalin's view, to believing in a logical impossibility.

Underlying this statement is a broader cynicism about human nature and international relations, a worldview in which actors are motivated, not by honesty or idealism, but by strategic self-interest. The very structure of diplomacy, Stalin implies, requires a lack of sincerity, and to demand otherwise is to misunderstand its nature. The metaphor functions as both a warning to those who take diplomatic language at face value and as a commentary on the practical necessities of politics.

Ultimately, Stalin’s words strip away any romantic notion of international affairs as governed by transparency and goodwill, exposing instead a world where surface and substance are rarely aligned, and where the language of sincerity is as paradoxical as wooden iron or dry water.